Losing all sense of proportion

BY sr ramanujan| IN Media Practice | 03/12/2005

S R Ramanujan

There are occasions, may be rare ones, when politicians come around somewhere nearer truth. One such was when the Congress President Sonia Gandhi said "Good news is bad news for media…You have to be in the business and we are the providers of the business" at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit. Of course, in the same speech, she distanced herself from reality when she said that her party along with her ally Lalu Prasad Yadav’s RJD would reach the victory post in Bihar. The bad press the Congress party has been getting since Volcker revelations must be haunting her. Otherwise she might not have repeated the charge against the media once again within a week or so. At the rising day of the NCC, she said "Some sections of the media tend to give less importance to achievements and positive stories".

Sonia Gandhi is not alone in holding such views against the media. The Andhra Pradesh chief minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy is quite upset with the 24-hour news channels. Just to keep the channels going for 24 hours, these channels have lost all sense of proportion and news sense and what all they want is to thrust the mike before any politician, who happens to be within the distance that cables can reach, for bytes. What the politician says is irrelevant so long as there are bytes to fill the time. This is the complaint of Dr Reddy and he is not wrong. Instances are not wanting when the reporter puts the mike before the politician and asks him to say something before the camera. This is so far as the "24-hour news(ance)" is concerned. But he is also cut up with two major Telugu dailies - Eenadu and Andhra Jyoti - because he perceives them to be anti-Congress and that they are determined to dethrone his party. When it comes to regional media, this is the problem. Newspapers do play political games and the rulers play favourites. The state revenue minister, taking cue from his boss, accuses the media in the state of running a "sinister campaign on farmer suicides to pull down the Y S Rajasekara Reddy government". During the TDP regime, the farmers suicide was at its peak. Though these two newspapers glossed over this fact and defended Chandrababu to the hilt as the poster boy of economic and IT reforms, they could not stop his downfall. What politicians should realize is that before the people’s power media power is quite feeble.

This is not to say that the charge against media is baseless. It is quite true that the 24-hour business has completely distorted news priorities. The television coverage of the chaos before the BJP’s Bhopal office on Monday was a classic example. 2-minute footage of the rampage was put on loop (a television jargon for repeat) for more than two hours with the "Live" super giving the impression to the viewer that the "tamasha" by Uma Bharati supporters was going on for hours. What came as a comical interlude was the question by the anchor to the reporter "What is the scene like before the party office?" even as the repeat footage was running along side with the "Live" super. Any viewer (even if he is a Congressman) would have been bored to death to watch the visuals of Venkaiah"s effigy being burnt or the destruction of arches by Uma supporters for nearly hundred time throughout the evening. The competition was between NDTV and Aaj Tak over the duration of the "live show".

However, what went on for hours on the small screen was only a 35-word single column story for Deccan Chronicle and a slightly longer single column for Times. For the Hindu, it was just a paragraph in the main story itself with a picture inside. The New Indian Express did not even make a mention of the ugly scenes before the BJP office. Whether "good news is bad news" for media or not, "bad news is too good a news" for the television channels because it helps them to stretch it as long as they can, even if it means distorting the news. Volcker debate in Parliament, Saddam trial,  Sensex crossing 9000 were all pushed behind for those couple of hours. Can there be such a big gulf between the print and television when it comes to news priorities or rat her judgement.

There can be legislation to regulate the contents of the television programmes as contemplated by the Union government. But that will only take care of the obscenity in some television channels. Can it inject news sense into those who are producing the news bulletins? Alas, it can come only from within or when the viewers use the remote to turn away from those channels which are brazenly distorting news. It is bound to happen if the trend continues.

 contact: s_ramanujan9@yahoo.co.in